


From the ashes a fire shall be woken

by Grimms_Tale



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, City Elf Culture and Customs, City Elf Inquisitor, Eventual Smut, F/M, Slight Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Trespasser Spoilers, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, dear maker so much angst, is this thing even lit?, like somewhere along the way, like the slowest burn ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5897032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimms_Tale/pseuds/Grimms_Tale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Lavellan had never been born to the Dalish but in the slums of Orlais? </p><p>Her people had called for mien’harel for justice and their Empress had answered them with a massacre. </p><p>The tale of Alix; a City-Elf, denizen of Val Royeaux, carrier of too many secrets. Caught on the razor sharp edge of two vastly different cultures, condemned by both sides, watch as she struggles to reconcile her faith and culture with the heritage she discovers waiting for her outside the alienage walls and rises to become the most powerful person in all of Thedas. </p><p>Can she still keep her secrets? Or will they be spilled like so much collateral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Journey to the Crossroads

She was exhausted. It wasn’t just the lingering effects of the fever that had gripped her when she stepped out of the Fade nor was it the injuries she had sustained in the battle that followed. It was the endless trek that had brought them down pilgrim trails from the mountains and across the open plains of the hinterlands.

Her journey to the Conclave had been much more sedate, the train of horses and carts and their attendants had only been able to move so fast uphill and Didier had chosen to load his expedition so heavily that the last few miles had been taken at a crawl.

Not that she was any stranger to hard work - to being up before dawn and not stopping ‘til nightfall. But cleaning and serving tables was an entirely different thing to tramping across the chilly, windswept plains as they had been doing for the past eleven days.

She was relieved when Cassandra finally declared that they would make camp that evening in a small clearing of well off of the road. Someone had used this spot before she realised as she sank down onto a fallen log for in the centre of the clearing was the burnt out remains of a fire pit.

Varric gently eased himself down next to her. Like her, he was a native to the cities and was used to cobbles not mountain paths under his feet. The lines on his face showed the strain the journey had placed on him and his skin looked grey under his perpetual Marchers tan. The dwarf had been silent the last few miles of their day’s journey and the long walk had felt colder and lonelier without his constant chatter and jokes at the Seeker’s expense.

He took an out an intricately carved pipe and began filling it from a small pouch at his waist. Even at a distance, its rich and earthy smell marked it as high quality. She had developed something of a taste for the dog weed tobacco favoured by sailors a few years back. Sailors on leave had had been more than happy to settled accounts at the end of an evening with goods in trade as well as with coin. But that had been smoked wrapped in thin curls of paper or tree bark that stained her fingertips yellow. It had been some time since she had indulged in that particular habit. Some time indeed, since she had been in Val Royeaux. The Conclave had seen to that. He caught her looking then and with a quirk of his eyebrow offered her his pipe.

“Want some Rosebud?”

“Rosebud…?” She asked, confused.

“Y’know, rosebuds, petals all tightly curled, stems full of thorns.” At her blank look he continued, “I have a uh a theory about eleven women and flowers. Not a fan? All right, I’ll think of something else… Nettle maybe? You’re spiky enough.”

She shot him an irritated look that only made him chuckle as she took the proffered pipe and took an experimental puff. And promptly spluttered. 

She had never smoked from a pipe before and had made the mistake of inhaling. It left her coughing and wheezing with tears running down her eyes and earned a deep raspy laugh from the dwarf. He continued to laugh as he took the pipe back.

“Glad I amuse you” she grumbled finally when her eyes had stopped streaming, it only made him laugh harder. She and Varric traded insults stories back and forth as she set about looking for firewood. She even took a few more careful puffs from the pipe, being careful not to inhale as she tried to kindle a fire in the burnt out remains of the pit. She wasn’t doing a very good job and it was Solas who, with an elegant almost lazy movement of his wrist set fire to the damp wood and scrub she had collected. 

She felt herself start at the casual use of magic. Magic unnerved her. Solas unnerved her. She had never before seen an elf that held himself in such a manner, so proud, arrogant even. His posture straight and defiant in the face of the Shems who would look down on him. He was like no elf she had ever met and he called to mind the tales of the wondering Dalish told around alienage fires of an evening. Those fabled legends of their mystical, magical brethren who fought against Shems and the Chantry edicts. Who would one day swoop in and save them all from a life of drudgery and oppression.

But he was not Dalish, quite the contrary. In the one conversation they had had prior to leaving Haven he had declared them little more than children clinging to fragments of a past they failed to understand. There had been anger there in his voice, an old wound perhaps and she felt she could grasp the secret of him if only she knew the right questions to ask. But he had deflected any further Dalish or anything really for that matter and they had not spoken much since they had left Haven. 

He was fascinating and frustrating, evading all direct questions as skilfully as any Orlesian Bard. An utter mystery. Perhaps the most frustrating thing was that nobody else questioned it. They saw only a pair of knife ears and not the mystery of the man between them. 

Since that first conversation in Haven she had watched him with a cautious curiosity and he regarded her in turn. It became a sort of dance in which they endlessly circled, trying to solve the mystery of one another without betraying secrets of their own.

She had been too disconcerted to sit by the magical fire, not that it truly looked magical but the means of its creation and indeed its creator was enough to kill her appetite. So she begged the need for sleep and sought her bedroll early falling into an uneasy slumber.

Her dreams were restless, had been since Haven, she dreamed of endless pursuit by an unknown enemy, of creatures with many eyes and of being chased across a blasted landscape. She awoke sometime before dawn; she had somehow twisted herself up in her blankets and felt trapped and claustrophobic. Needing air desperately crawled out of the small tent she shared with Varric into the cold dawn light. Varric was oblivious to her movements, not even a hitch in his snoring. 

“Sleep well?” a voice asked. It made her jump before she realised it was Solas speaking. Sitting on the same log she had sat upon earlier, posture relaxed and staff balanced across his knees, he regarded her calmly across the remains of the campfire. 

She felt a swell of irritation; his voice had been coolly neutral but surely was mocking her? He can’t have failed to hear the sounds of her tossing and turning even over Varric’s deep basal snoring. To hide the irritation on her face she stooped to fix her leggings, she regretted her earlier decision to leave them on as she slept, her dreams had left her feeling sticky and clammy and they clung awkwardly to her legs. 

When her face was once more under control, she straightened and moved to sit across from him. 

“If your dreams are causing you trouble, I may be able to help –“ he began but she cut him off with a curt shake of her head. She was being rude, she knew but something about Solas always left her on edge and she would do what she could to avoid as much magic as possible. As if she could, she thought glumly looking at the balled fist of her left hand on her lap. Emerald green light spilled out from the gap into the winters chill and she let the silence stretch and curl around her as she contemplated the mark and what it foretold for her. Death most probably. Whatever good fortune had kept her from death all these years had fled and Falon’Din was catching up to her.

“What happened to your ear?” Solas asked finally into the silence that had stretched longer than she realised the sky was lighter now and she could see it pinkening towards the east as the sun crested the horizon. She flinched at the question and her unmarked hand rose to the ear and the old scar there. She ran her fingers running over the thick wedge of scar tissue where the tip of her ear used to be. Her hair did well to hide it usually but she had braided it to sleep out of habit. She sorely that regretted now, it was foolish. If she lets loose one secret then another slip until her whole web was unravelled.  
He was looking at her patiently as though he had an eternity to wait upon her answer.

She floundered a moment for an answer that wouldn’t give away too much “Never heard of a rabbit having its docked for not moving fast enough?”

She had said it in jest, her tone light but she watched him intently for any slip or trip. Anything that could give her more of a read on the man and to deflect the attention from herself. Solas didn’t reply, in their short time together he had proven himself adept at seeing through her lies and deflections and now was no exception. He simply waited for the truth.

“A Chevalier” She said as if that was all the explanation needed. Seeing the perplexed look on her face she continued. To think she had once prided herself on how well she guarded her tongue.

“It’s a.. I don’t know, a right of passage? They tumble them half drunk out of a carriage, into the slums with a short sword and orders to kill as many rabbits as they can. This one took pity on me I suppose. He took only the ear. An act of charity he called it.”

She could remember it as though it had happened yesterday. The stink of wine on the Chevalier’s breath, the taste of blood in her mouth as he casually backhanded her to quiet her struggling. “Hold still rabbit!” And then the pain. 

She still been living on the streets then, begging for petit alms in the lower markets and sleeping in doorways. When she still held the foolish notion of bettering herself and fulfilling Philippe’s dreams. The ear had gotten infected unsurprisingly and she had paid a back street healer half a silver bit, all the money she had, to cauterise the wound. 

The Shem must have been well into his cups or else a vindictive son-of-a-bitch because the poker he had used had slipped and left a mass of burnt skin the size of her palm on the her scalp. To this day it remained a puckered pink mess where no hair grew.

Such a profound look of pity and sorrow filled Solas’s face then. And was that guilt? No, she was imagining things.

“How old were you?” He asked.

“Ah... I don’t know...Twelve or thereabouts.” How long had she lived on the streets before some soul took pity on her and directed her to the alienage? She had no idea. At her answer his grip on his staff tightened, his knuckles turned white and he looked as though he wanted to dearly hit something.

“Bad enough they do this but that they would do this to a child?” his voice was a mixture of anger and disbelief and it she felt a stirring of alarm and complete incredulity. She had hated the Shem who had done this to her and before she had left for the Conclave she had found it difficult to be around any Shem without shaking with rage and a sense of injustice. But in truth she knew was lucky to have survived, she felt lucky. Most elves that tangled with Chevaliers ended up dead. But she had escaped, had escaped death more times than she cared to admit and not just before the events of the Conclave.

“Have you really spent no time in the cities?’ She asked trying to keep the incredulous tone out of her voice, it was the way of life there, however much one may hate it. An elf learnt to acclimatise quickly or they didn’t survive.

“No.” His shoulders slumped then, his anger evaporating leaving only sadness. “It has been some time since I have been in Val Royeaux... it was much different back then. I have… seen many things in my journeys through the Fade but it is another thing entirely to hear such things first hand.” Despite his casual mention of magic, she found her interest piqued. 

“What made you start studying the face?’ She asked.

“I grew up in a village to the north. There was little to interest a man there, especially one gifted with magic but as I slept spirits of the Fade showed me glimpses of wonders I had never imagined. I treasured my dreams. Being awake out of the Fade became troublesome.”

“Did Spirits try to tempt you?” She was almost afraid to ask the question. Scared he would realise just how much he was giving away of himself but she was enthralled. They had never spoken this long before and she found herself equal parts fascinated and appalled at his words.

“No more so than a brightly coloured fruit is tempting you to eat.” She had a sudden vivid image of Solas biting into piece of fruit, the juices dripping down his chin and she felt her face redden at the thought. 

“I learnt how to defend myself from more aggressive spirits and how to safely interact with the rest. I learnt how to control my dreams with full consciousness. There was so much I wanted to explore.” His voice had taken on a deep contemplative melancholy as he stared not at her but through her recalling memories she could not even begin to fathom.

“I gather you didn’t spend your entire life dreaming?” his gaze returned to her with her question, his gaze amused.

“No, eventually I was unable to find new areas in the fade.

“Why?”

“Two reasons, first the Fade reflects the world around us. Unless I travelled I was unable to find anything new. Second, the Fade reflects and is limited by our imaginations. To find interesting areas, one must be interesting.” He sounded so much like Philippe then, lecturing her on some simple aspect of mathematics that she had failed to understand the concept of the first time round.

“Is this why you joined the Inquisition?”

“I joined the Inquisition because we are all in terrible danger. If our enemies destroy the world, I would have nowhere to lay my head while dreaming of the Fade.”

What did one reply to such a statement? She would lay money on not even the greatest players of the Game knowing how to spin such a statement to their advantage.  
“I wish you luck.” If her reply did not please him he made sign of it.

“Thank you. In truth, I have enjoyed experiencing more life to find more of the Fade.” 

“How so?” 

“You train to flick a dagger to its target. The grace with which you move is but a pleasing side benefit. You have chosen a path whose steps you do not dislike because it leads to a destination you enjoy. As have I.” She gave a small huff of laughter at his words and voice full of doubt she said.

“Are you’re implying that I’m graceful?” she asked failing to keep the humour and scepticism out of her voice. She was adequate with her blades at best; even she knew that. Were it not for Solas’s barriers, Varric at her back and Cassandra leading the charge she would have died for good at the temple.

“No, I was declaring it. It was not a subject for debate” at his words she felt her eyes go wide and flush creep up from the base of her neck to the tips of her ears. Was he flirting with her? His eyes met hers across the dying fire full of heat and the hint of a challenge.

No, surely not she thought as a traitorous heat filled her belly. It was a test surely, another one. Her mind strayed back to the first real conversation they had had in Haven, when he had mockingly declared her the Herald of Andraste sent to save them all. As if the bride of the Maker would send an elf to do her bidding, it had been laughable. She had answered him with humour and felt the unspoken approval and the start of his close scrutiny. Surely this was just another test? 

She had been silent for too long, red faced and frozen as she perches awkwardly on the log. She hummed noncommittally in reply not trusting herself to do much else. 

Desire and embarrassment and horror at the thought of an apostate flirting with her warred within her and she didn’t trust herself to speak without sounding like a fool or giving something away. His gaze softened then, pity and perhaps disappointment mingled in his voice when he spoke next, dismissing her.

“You should rest Alix. Whilst you still can. We are some way from the Crossroads and the journey will not be easy. There is still much ground to cover. Sleep while you can, I will keep watch.”

Feeling like an awkward bumbling teenage girl blushing at her first Springfest festival she stood and turned back to her tent. It had been some kind of test, she was sure of it, and she had failed miserably. So why was she still blushing?

As she lay down on her bedroll, head pillowed in her arms, Varric’s snoring a deep and steady rhythm next to her. She realised suddenly as she felt the first wave of sleep pull her under that she had never heard him say her name before; she liked the way it fell from his lips in that soft lilting accent. She anchored herself to the memory of it as she slipped blessedly dreamless sleep.


	2. Roast Mutton

The Crossroads was a disaster. Already the stench from the funeral pyres and heavy black smoke filled the air. All around them half starved and ragged refugees crowded in small huddles. 

She stood, chilled in the mid-winter morning and told herself that the tears stinging her eyes were due to the smoke as she watched the pyres burn.

“What do dwarves do with their dead?” she asked the smaller figure at her side.

Varric heaved a heavy sigh “dwarves and their tradition. They call it returning to the stone. When Bartrand-“ He faltered, “when my brother died we had him taken to Orzammar. It’s comforting I suppose but I know few surfacers who admit to having any stone sense left.”

“I’m sorry Varric.” She said shooting the dwarf a small smile of thanks.

“Listen, Rosebud,” Varric said his eyes on the funeral pyres ahead 

“Don’t let this eat you up inside…”

“I killed those people today Varric.”

“Only after they tried to kill you first I might point out.” He countered.

“It doesn’t matter Varric. They had a life, people who knew them and loved them, wives, children even, and I took it from them.”

“Look around you at these people Roses. Do you really think the Templars or Mages cared who got caught in their crossfire? If you hadn’t done what you did you would be dead right now and so would they.”

She heaved a heavy sigh of her own “Na via lerno Victoria, is that it?” He shot her a puzzled glance but nodded slowly.

“Something like that.” He rubbed a hand down his face; the devastation of the crossroads wasn’t just affecting her. 

“Cassandra sent me to find you. She’s still co-ordinating efforts with Corporal Vale but she wants you to speak to the scouts, see if you can get them out there to hunt something for these people to eat.”

That, she could do at least do and she nodded her assent to Varric before turning from the pyres. Mother Giselle’s suggestions had been farcical and the longer she thought on it, the more laughable it seemed. 

Just march back to Val Royeaux and confront the Grand Clerics – her, a knife ear, she’d be dead before she opened her mouth. But she knew with a sinking certainty it is what she would be forced to do, if Cassandra had to drag her all the way to the Grand Cathedral by the tip of her good ear.

She had tracked down Scout Harding amongst some of the other Inquisition scouts. The dwarf had been more than happy to gather up the necessary people and make their way into the hills. She even handed Alix a spare bow, face shy as she asked her to accompany them. She hesitated before replying. She was no bowman, there had been no call for one in the back alleys and narrow streets of the alienage. 

But she liked Harding, there was only the slightest hint of reverence when she spoke to her unlike the folk in Haven and the Crossroads who all but fell at her feet or else grasped her cloak when she passed. It was a chilling feeling, to go unmasked, marked and noted through a crowd. She had grown used to the casual disregard the Shems showed her kind, to being invisible. And regardless what Cassandra and some of the others might say, she did not feel divinely touched only ridiculously, pathetically lucky in the worst way possible.

 

As predicted, her skills with a bow were somewhat lacking and a rift they stumbled across put a stop to her budding career as a bowman. She had returned to the Crossroads with the few injured and set about preparing the meat they brought back for the cook fire.

There she remained for the rest of the day, slicing, skinning and dismembering the procession of carcasses the scouts brought down. It was good honest work and she was gladdened by it and by sundown, though her limbs and back were aching her perpetual headache from lack of sleep was gone and she was able to look on the days work with a smile. 

All around the Crossroads, cook fires had sprung up and there was the buzz of hope in the air that fully bellies always brought. She bent again to clean blood and offal off of her blade. It was poor use for such an instrument and she reminded herself to pick up a belt knife in Haven for more rough work. She washed her hands while she was at it and was just drying them when Solas exited the small healers cabin and made his way over to her.

“How fair the injured” She said by way of greeting.

“I have done for them what I could,” he said his voice coolly neutral as always “but I am no healer and what magics I have may do more to harm than help.”

“I thought magic could cure anything” She was perplexed, that was one of the only good things she had ever heard to magic. To heal wounds and knit flesh, to call a man back from the brink of death.

“In theory, yes” his voice was slow as though explaining to a small child “but in reality, the strain it puts on the body of both the mage and the recipient is immense. Sometimes it is better to leave the healing to nature, slow as it.” She nodded dumbly at his explanation, truly none the wiser – what she knew about magic came straight from the Chantry and they were less than complimentary on the subject.

“What happened to your arm” he said into the ensuing silence. Ah, that. Blast and damnation, he would be the one to notice that. She had been holding it close to her side, curled towards her chest to avoid moving it.

“We stumbled upon a rift earlier whilst out hunting, it was nothing really” a complete lie, in truth had it not been for twenty odd scouts raining arrows the monstrous stick like demon would have plunged his claws straight through her. She had been utterly useless, gripped by a fear so immense she had been frozen to the spot as it whipped her up in its immense hands. It had been closing the rift however that had wrought the change on her arm. Seeing straight through her untruths as it seemed he always did, Solas merely put out his had for her arm to examine it.

“I’m not hurt truly, there is no pain.” He didn’t respond merely gestured again for her arm. She gave it to him reluctantly and stood in uncomfortable silence as he stripped back the sleeve of her coat and shirt to better look at her arm.   
pain

“There is no pain, truly.” She tried again but he ignored her as he began his examination. “It… it is a sort of numbness and yet an ache. It began as soon as soon as I sealed the rift.” His eyes met her for a brief worried moment before he turned his attention back to her arm. 

She watched him in silence a while, his long fingers, deft and graceful as they carefully poked the skin around her mark. She wished she had washed her hands more thoroughly, her nails were still filthy with old blood and offal and there was dirt ground into the calluses across her palms and back of her knuckles but all thoughts were driven from her head when she felt a soothing flush of healing magic make its way up her arm. Her hackles rose and she could see goose bumps break out on her skin. She made as if to move her arm away but Solas held her tight. 

“It is the mark” he said, teeth gritted as he poured more magic into the healing, she was uncomfortably aware of her arm as never before and the press of his fingers against her hand felt almost overwhelming and she was intimately aware of the sensation of flesh on flesh. “It was never meant to be caged in mortal flesh.” He muttered but she wasn’t paying attention. It was too much, she felt as though her skin was being flayed and she felt her knees begin to give out when Solas finally declared it enough and withdraw his hands and with it the spell. 

She swayed and Solas’s hands came up again this time around her shoulders as if to steady her but she shook him off. She felt too tender for touch.

“What happened” she gasped when at last she had her breath back. “The mark-“ Solas began but she cut him off 

“You said that already, what happened, was that healing magic?”

“The mark you bare is connected to the very fade itself. When you reach to seal a rift the magic pours through you in a way that puts your body under stress and damages it- the numbness you felt is your body’s way of protecting you from that pain. I merely undid the damage.”

“Will it get worse?”   
“Perhaps” he paused and then continued slower “It may be that when we seal the breach the damage to your arm will lesson, that we may even be able to remove the mark from your arm entirely.”

“Perhaps? May be?” She was getting impatient with his half answers “What is the alternative?” she demanded.

“…The alternative is that it kills you” there was such a note of sorrow and pity in his voice that she couldn’t stand it and her anger and impatience fled her as quickly as it arrived. After a long pause, she said simply “that’s fair I suppose” she felt exhausted both from the strange healing and from the revelation. Would there be no end to all this mess? “Everyone else died at the conclave, I suppose its fair I join them, no? I guess the Dread Wolf truly caught my scent.”   
At her words Solas flinched. Meeting her eyes with a look of caution he said, “I did not know the elves of the alienages remembered the old ways. I thought you were all Andrastian’

“We remember more than you give us credit for” in truth, the tales of the old gods worshiped by their ancestors was just that, tales and half remembered folk tales, given as much weight as leaving milk out for the pixies, but she was hardly going admit that to Solas.

“Goodnight Solas, and thank you for the healing I guess.” She trudged back to camp and her own bedroll. There would be meat there too for the evening meal instead of the simple porridge and dry rations they had been subsisting on. The thought did not cheer her as much should have.

That night after Cassandra had finished eating she stood and gestured for Alix to follow. Alix laid down her bowl , she had still not finished eating, she was grown more used to regular meals on the road but was still going slowly, and followed. They walked in silence away from their small meal until privacy could be assured before Cassandra spoke.

 

“I have sent a bird back to Haven regarding Mother Giselle’s suggestion. I shall wait to see how they respond but I believe the others will agree that taking her advice is the best course of action we have. That we should make our way to Val Royeaux and speak to the Grand Clerics as soon as possible”

“You don’t mean to return to Haven?” she had known this was coming but the haste with which Cassandra was moving sent a bolt of apprehension through her gut. 

”Cassandra, you cannot really mean to take the old woman’s advice can you?”

“That old woman is a Chantry Mother and one of the Justinia’s closet friends!”

“And I am an elf. Think Cassandra, you lived in Val Royeaux, what do you really expect me to do? Just walk right up to the Chantry Mothers? They’d nail me to the Chantry door walls by my one good ear” 

Cassandra barely flinched “You are the Herald of Andraste, they would not dare-“

“Yes, they would!” when had her voice gotten so loud? “They will always dare, just like they dared to raise Halamshiral to the ground, just like Dales, just like when they locked the alienage gates and left us there to starve!” She was almost shouting now and she felt her body shaking with anger, resentment and fear. 

“That was not the Chantry that did that Her-” Cassandra began

“No, but it was humans!” What was she thinking? She would get more than just a slap to the face for raising her voice like that. But to her surprise Cassandra’s reply her voice soft and she reached as though to place a hand on her shoulder but thought better of it.

“What choice do we have Her- Alix? Without the Chantry’s support we are nothing, heretics and they will turn on us all eventually. But if we succeed we may gather the support we need to seal the breach once and for all.” It was not a rebuke, and kinder than she deserved. She knew Cassandra did not blame her for not being able to seal it the first time round but she couldn’t help the note of defensiveness that crept into her voice as she said 

“I did what I could Cassandra, I tried to seal the breach I-“

“I know you did” Cassandra turned to her then but her voice was kind as she said “and that is why we must go to Val Royeaux to gain allies to help us. I will not let them hurt you Alix. On that you have my word. Any who seek to harm the Herald of Andraste will have to go through me first.” And for a wonder, she believed her. She still felt the fear down deep in her gut but she had grown up listening to the story of the Champion of Orlais. How at barely twenty she had brought down a dragon and foiled an attempt on the old Divine’s life. She had a sudden vision of Cassandra rushing Chantry clerics with her shield and throwing officials over her shoulder. It was an oddly comforting sight.

“What was it mother Giselle said to you? You do not have to convince them, you just have to make them doubt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a curious lack of ‘blast and damnation’ and ‘Blood and ashes’ from DA:I for my liking. Maybe it was a Ferelden thing? I like it anyway it has a little more oomph than ‘Andraste’s tits’ or the ‘Maker’s hairy ball-sack’. As a devout Andrastian, I think Alix would be more at home with them anyway.
> 
> Also, every time we see an animation of healing magic, it always strikes me as rather painful don’t you think? I chose to work that into the narrative just a little bit. I thought it a way better reason as to why you don't have an active healer in your party than 'just cause'.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahem, I have seriously never in my life attempted to write any kind of creative piece but had this idea has been for a while and now, without new any new content, I have no excuse not to write it all down. I appreciate any and all feedback and appreciate anyone taking the time to read this thing.
> 
> As much as I grew to love my Dalish Inquisitor, I really missed my City-Elf Warden from Origins and wondered how different the game would have been had we been given the chance to play as one. Here is my attempt at least.


End file.
